Sophy of Kravonia A Novel by Anthony Hope

Author:Anthony Hope [Hope, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

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XI

M. ZERKOVITCH'S BEDROOM FIRE

Often there are clever brains about us of whose workings we care nothing, save so far as they serve to the defter moving of our dishes or the more scientific brushing and folding of our clothes. Humorists and philosophers have described or conjectured or caricatured the world of those who wait on us, inviting us to consider how we may appear to the inward gaze of the eyes which are so obediently cast down before ours or so dutifully alert to anticipate our orders. As a rule, we decline the invitation; the task seems at once difficult and unnecessary. Enough to remember that the owners of the eyes have ears and mouths also! A small leak, left unstanched, will empty the largest cask at last; it is well to keep that in mind both in private concerns and in affairs of public magnitude.

The King's body-servant, Emile Lepage, had been set a-thinking. This was the result of the various and profuse scoldings which he had undergone for calling young Count Alexis "Prince." The King's brief, sharp words at the conference had been elaborated into a reproof both longer and sterner than his Majesty was wont to trouble himself to administer; he had been very strong on the utter folly of putting such ideas into the boy's head. Lepage was pretty clear that the idea had come from the boy's head into his, but he said nothing more of that. The boy himself scolded Lepage—first for having been overheard, secondly (and, as Lepage guessed, after being scolded himself very roundly) for using the offending title at all. Meekly Lepage bore this cross also—indeed, with some amusement, and a certain touch of pity for young Alexis, who was not a prince and obviously could not make out why: in the books a king's sons were always princes, even though there were (as in those glorious days there often were) fifty or threescore of them.

Then Countess Ellenburg scolded him: the King's "It's absurd!" was rankling sorely in her mind. Her scolding was in her heaviest manner—very religious: she called Heaven to witness that never, by word or deed, had she done anything to give her boy such a notion. The days are gone by when Heaven makes overt present answer; nothing happened! She roundly charged Lepage with fostering the idea for his own purposes; he wanted to set the Prince of Slavna against his little brother, she supposed, and to curry favor with the rising sun at the poor child's cost.

She was very effective, but she angered Lepage almost beyond endurance. By disposition he was thoroughly good-natured, if sardonic and impassive; he could not suffer the accusation of injuring the pretty boy for his own ends; it was both odious and absurd. He snapped back smartly at her: "I hope nobody will do more to put wrong ideas in his head than I have done, Madame la Comtesse." In a fury she drove him from the room. But she had started ever so slightly.

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